What a pity that this pathbreaking work is out of print while publishers flood the bookstores with fantasy-as-history in an unending stream.

Bishop Robinson, a theological modernist whose "Honest to God" made him controversial within the Anglican communion, began this book as what he labels "a theological joke": "I thought I would see how far one could get with the hypothesis that the whole of the New Testament was written before 70", the year in which the Roman army sacked and burned the Temple of Jerusalem. As it turned out, he got much further than he had ever expected, a journey made more impressive by his lack of any predisposition toward a "conservative" point of view.

His conclusion is that there is no compelling evidence - indeed, little evidence of any kind - that anything in the New Testament canon reflects knowledge of the Temple's destruction. Furthermore, other considerations point consistently toward early dates and away from the common assumption (a prejudice with a seriously circular foundation) that a majority of primitive Christian authors wrote in the very late First or early-to-middle Second Century under assumed names.

For want of data, absolute proof of Robinson's thesis is impossible, and the weight of his arguments varies - from overwhelming in the case of the Epistle to the Hebrews through powerful (the Gospels, Acts and the Epistles of John) to merely strong (the Pastoral Epistles, the non-Johannine Catholic Epistles and Revelation).

In a postscript, Robinson reconsiders the dates of several subapostolic works: The Clementine Epistles, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache, the accepted dates for which range from the 90's to the latter half of the Second Century. He shows that, freed of the "push" of late dating of the canon, the most natural dates for these writings are earlier and that all could well have been written by 85 A.D.

Whether or not one agrees with every word of Robinson's analysis, he makes his case well and should force all students of the New Testament to rethink seriously the presuppositions that underlie much of what is currently written about First Century Christianity. Of course, that's not likely to happen unless some publisher brings "Redating the New Testament" back into print.

In some ways Robinson's "Redating" is of the same genre as Eisenman's 1997 "James the Brother of Jesus." Unfortunately, Eisenman hardly mentions Redating and certainly fails to give the attention to John's Gospel that Bishop Robinson would have us give. Yet, through Eisenman's focus on James (and subordination of John and Peter) he achieves a higher level of connectivity with other sources (particularly Josephus) and perhaps makes some real progress as to the problem Bishop Robinson, too, thought very real: the surprising lack of contemporary references to Jesus and his colleagues. Robinson would have been pleased at the extension of his work, even if he might not have favored the redactionism of Eisenman.

Robinson argues that the gospels were oral traditions later reduced to writing. Eisenman does not say precisely this, but he would have us conclude that later "foreign" editors and redactors got the names wrong and mixed up, including the names of Joseph, Mary, Mary Salome, Simon and Judas and even Jesus, himself. He tells us what he thinks the real names were and makes connections that follow on from this analysis. One should reread Robinson and then go on to Eisenman.

In the latest reviews it is said that Eisenman does not take us beyond mere plausibility. The same, of course, was true for Robinson. The speculations they make, however, are charged with excitement and are remarkably well integrated and worked out so that the plausibility is worth noting. In the context of their works, they make it plausible that the next discoveries or rediscoveries will yield all the more.

Robert Gray

Dr. Robinson does an excellent job. Tho a difficult read--it's not the Sunday funnies--it is very scholarly. Dr. Robinson's premise is that a very important event in Jewish/Christian history is absent from the New Testament; since the destruction of the Temple (in 70 AD by the Romans) isn't mentioned anywhere in the NT, that indicates a pre 70 AD writing of each New Testament source.

But this is the best book on Christianity and its existential relation(s) to the embodied life that I've ever read! Every paragraph of Robinson's closely reasoned interpretation of Paul, the most prolific Christian enscripturated writer, opened whole new vistas on how the body, existentially understood, ties together every facet of Christianity. I'll have more to say about this book in a subsequent review . . . But, if you can find a copy of this little jewel, grab it and see what I mean. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this too.

= Honest to God, 40 years later
Reviewer: didaskalex from Raleigh, NC United States

Honest to God, 1963
If there is anything to be said in evaluation of this book rests with the fact that it is still alive and controversial. These are positive signs, since whatever the late Bishop of Woolwich meant, was in true honesty to the audience he came to address, even though he was not certain about how faithful was he to the tradition, ways of thinking or personal relation with the Deity he intended to be honest to.

John A. T. Robinson
The author was an outstanding thinker who wrote 25 books, of which honest to God was one of his early writings. He came to the lime light when he disagreed to a ban on lady Chatterley's Lover in Britain. He quotes D.H. Lawrence, 'The plumed serpent' in ch.6; (The new Morality). The greatest impact of this slim book which revealed no breaking discoveries, was only its promotion of the essential tension in religious thinking between tradition and change, (Ch.1: Reluctant Revolution) .

Inspiration for Honest to God
Although what Robinson wrote was not unknown, since most likely that he read the then recently published D. Jenkins book 'Beyond Religion,' when confined to his house due to a back injury that stranded for some weeks. His book was inspired by the same thinkers were common to both and most mid century theologeneration: Barth, Tillich, and Bonhoeffer. Robinson further enriched the clash with supporting quotations from Catholic leaders of Nouvelle theologie, De Lubac, and E. Congar, in addition to his favorite existential Jewish philosopher M. Buber.

The Debate
Soon after, that little book was discussed everywhere, by all the Byzantine minded lay theologians, while members of the organized religious institutions took the case to condemn or few times supports the Bishop, who by definition of his office discerns the reality of the faith of his Church. These were gathered, edited, and printed in a book entitled, "The Honest to God Debate, including the Church of England, C.S.Lewis, R.P.Hanson, and R. Bultmann. J. Robinson commented, complementing the positive reaction, writing under the subheading: Theology and the public, "It is a safe assumption that a best seller tells one more about the state of the market than the quality of the product !"

The "Smoke and mirrors" reviewer misses the whole point of this marvelous book, that Christ himself got beyond the strictures of rules and law and admonishes all of us to do the same. Bishop Robinson reminds us that Jesus' message is love, not ritual, and that by loving all and everything we do not OBEY God, we express Him profoundly in the world and EXPERIENCE Him by living His essence (God is love).

I was so amazed to discover a Christian Bishop encouraging us to go beyond being Christian, Jew, or whatever, beckoning to an end of "theism" simply by living lives of love----be we monk, mogul, or movie star. It is so liberating and fulfilling to love; how odd that some of us could not want this fulfillment, hungering instead for strictures of do's and don'ts, for ecclesiastical structures of power and authority, for form over substance.

As the Bishop understands so well, love integrates, enlarging and completing anyone who will love. On the other hand, hatred, and the divisiveness of sect, cult, nationalism, and every other sort of "ism" isolate one into smaller and smaller corners of reality. We cannot fully know God or His creation if we are not willing to extend love to every person, indeed everything our life presents to us.

Thank you Bishop Robinson for so eloquent and loving a book.

I first read this book in the mid-70s after a few semesters at Bob Jones University and it confirmed the rightness of my decision to move on from fundamentalist and conventional Christianity, including the parochial Catholicism I grew up with. Robinson's book helped me in the personal journey from Sunday school and catechism piety to an authentic adult spirituality. Adults everywhere have been making the same move over the past thirty years and it is helping our religions to grow up as well. Read this book and join the movement from the pious pablum of traditional religion to the savory sustenance of adult spirituality